Stravinsky

After a welcome return to something approaching a pre-Covid normal season of training camps and concerts, the Australian Youth Orchestra has finished the year with a grand public concert at the Melbourne Town Hall.

Midwinter Melbourne resounded last week to Igor Stravinsky’s promise of spring, in two works that trace the seasonal drama of life, death, and rebirth. The Rite of Spring (1913) is a young man’s spectacular evocation of the exhilaration and terror of spring in ancient Russia, while Perséphone (1934) is a more reflective response to the endless cycle of the seasons, written by an older and more spiritual composer by then in permanent exile.